The Union Minister of State for Communications and IT, S. Thirunavukkarasar (right), Prithipal Singh (centre), chairman and managing director, BSNL, and S. S. Iyer, CGM, Chennai Telephones, at the inauguration of Call Centre and Answering Machine Service by the BSNL in Chennai on Monday.

CHENNAI
AUG. 25.
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has chalked out an ambitious plan to extend the existing value added services of providing Call Centres, Voice Mail and Answering Machine, now made available in Chennai city, to major towns in Tamil Nadu, to cater to both mobile and fixed line telephone subscribers. Unveiling BSNL's expansion plans, its chairman and managing director, Prithipal Singh, said these value added services would be in addition to the already existing customer grievance redressal outlets.

Pointing out that BSNL, even after being the fourth cellular service provider, was poised to provide one crore mobile connections nation-wide between 2004 and 2005, Mr. Singh said though BSNL was concentrating on mobile telephone services, it was also preparing to strike a balance to help retain the fixed line subscriber base by providing value added services. BSNL also planned to make available SMS facility for the four crore plus fixed line subscribers for which final equipment tests have already been completed. Mr. Singh said BSNL had already signed an Memorandum of Understanding the Indian Oil Corporation and Rail Tel for making available a range of value added services in the national highways and rail networks.

Commending the BSNL for becoming a trendsetter especially in mobile telephony by providing 36 lakh Cellone connections, the Union Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology, S. Thirunavukkarasar said, "We want to take hi-tech tele-communication services to the rural pockets and semi-urban areas of Tamil Nadu besides several parts of Southern region."

While nearly 126 towns in Tamil Nadu were already covered with 3.4 lakh cellular connections (which included 1 lakh and plus for Chennai city), the Minister said there was scope to improve tele-density, which was only 6 to 7 per cent. "We have a long journey to go in connecting the entire India. We are awaiting formal approval from the Union Home and Defence Ministries to provide cellular connections in North Eastern Region to accomplish this telecom sector dream in the next three months", he added. The Chief General Manager of Tamil Nadu Telecom Circle, K. Mahadevan, Chief General Manager Southern Telecom Region Maintenance, R.N. Srinivasan and Chief General Manager of Chennai Telephones, S.S. Iyer, also spoke.